Jorge Cruise

Dialogue

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TB: What about cardio?

JC: The worst thing you can do to get rid of your gut is cardio. Cardio’s good for the heart; don’t get me wrong. It burns calories. But there’s no afterburn. The afterburn comes only when you build lean muscle. For the rest of the day and while you’re sleeping, it’s restoring muscle and protein. And when it does that, it consumes calories.

TB: Do vitamins play any significant role?

JC: Oh, they’re huge. I take a lot of vitamins. I’ve got my own vitamin line now. But it’s overall nutrition that’s really huge. It’s the basis for everything I do. Whether it’s family, career, fun, traveling, none of that really rests well if the nutrition isn’t right and the health isn’t there.

TB: What’s the best method for a severely overweight person to get started on a fitness regimen?

JC: If a woman has 50 pounds to lose, it’s going to be the diet——eating every three hours. The most important thing is to stabilize blood sugar, because it gives you control over your appetite. The worst thing you can do is skip breakfast, have a small lunch and then wait till the end of the day to have one big meal, because the blood sugar drops, drops, drops. And it drops so fast you lose all control. So nighttime comes, and you order that pizza, and you’ll eat all of it——and a bag of chips, and everything! Your metabolism just goes crazy.

TB: So eating every three hours works, but you’ve still got to eat the right foods.

JC: It’s three main meals, two snacks and something before you go to bed. It’s about portion control and balanced meals; you should not exclude any food group. You want protein, and you want carbohydrates during the day. I don’t eat carbs at night, unless I need something to help me sleep. Probably the most important thing you can do for your health is sleep. You need that seventh hour of sleep——REM sleep——that’s so important. So it’s okay to eat just a little bit of starchy carbohydrate, 5 grams——a piece of bread, any little bit of carb——right before you go to bed. The carbs will knock you out.

TB: What about bypass surgery to control obesity?

JC: I’ve had people who had the surgery, lost the weight, and then came to me because they’d gained it back. The surgery does cut your stomach down, but you can stretch it right back out and [the stomach wall] gets thinner. If you have the surgery again, you could die. The biggest problem for people is they don’t have a plan. A lot of people don’t get in shape for the right reasons. They do it for maybe the bathing suit or some big event coming up. And then the event passes, or summer’s over, the high school reunion’s over, and then they give it all up. You need to have continual milestones to keep you going.

TB: You’ve worked with some of the big - gest celebrities in the world. And you’ve appeared with them on TV.

JC: I’ve been interviewed by Oprah, by Barbara Walters, Al Roker, Katie Couric. Worked with celebrities? Trained them? Yes. But we always have nondisclosure, and I’m very cautious about saying what I’ve done with whom, and what they ate and so forth.

TB: Let’s talk about two who’ve interviewed you——whether you trained them or not: Al Roker and Oprah Winfrey. These highly celebrated people go very public with their weight losses, they stay fit for a year or so, and then they blow up again. What’s that about?

JC: They’re emotional eaters. Food is a drug, and it’s a drug that immediately changes how you feel. It’s like drinking. Some think drinking is worse than over - eating, but overeating can kill you just as easily. And 70 percent of our culture is overweight.

TB: Why do you think it’s so hard to keep it under control?

JC: They probably pick a plan that’s not sensible, not sustainable. They’ll do something very extreme, like Oprah training for a marathon. When it’s over, they say, “Thank God; that’s it.” But it needs to be something you do every day. That’s why I take pride in the books we do. They’re designed so that you can do these things for the rest of your life. They’re not going to kill you every day. If you actually did these exercises for eight minutes every day, you’d achieve great results.

TB: Childhood obesity is epidemic in the United States. What’s the most important thing parents can do to make sure their children develop good fitness habits?

JC: First of all, it’s not epidemic anymore, it’s pandemic. Being a role model for your kids is the first thing. I’ve done these shows with Tyra Banks, and we did one with teenage kids. One was as young as 13——13 years old and he weighs 240 pounds. And guess what? His parents were way overweight. Kids learn this stuff. It’s not so much heredity as family customs that are passed down. So the trick is being a good role model. We’re working now on some programs for kids——for next year. Kids don’t have a network; no support system. We have two Web sites now——we have the 12-Second Workout site, and we have the 3-Hour Diet site. And we’re going to create one for kids——a place they can go every day for coaching and support.

TB: We’ve become a nation of overweight adults and children. You take a trip abroad, to France or Italy, and you can spot the American tourists a mile away.

JC: It’s sad. We were at Disneyland in March with my son Parker for the first time, and we see people who come in from all over the country, and you think, “My gosh, that’s America.” I just heard this about Disneyland, and it’s shocking. It’s a Small World is closed right now because they’re digging the trenches for the boats about 3 feet deeper, because the people who were getting on them were so heavy, they were hitting bottom. They had to dig them deeper so the boats could get through the Small World. How bad is that?

TB: Your book before The 12-Second Sequence is called The Fast-Food Diet. Seems to me fast food has been the bane of most dieters. Can someone who’s overweight actually lose weight on fast food?

JC: Well, people who’d read our earlier books wanted us to help them out when they went traveling. So this little pocketsize book is designed to keep travel from sabotaging your fitness. Of course, you shouldn’t eat fast food all the time. But if you’re going to eat it occasionally, you should know what’s best for you.

TB: What’s your favorite source when you have to do fast food?

JC: When I fly out of San Diego Airport, I get an Egg McMuffin at McDonald’s. What I’ll do is have three eggs, but I’ll have egg whites. You just have to ask the lady real nice, and she’ll do it. Egg whites and the muffin, but no cheese and no sausage. I love Rubio’s. Grilled chicken and salad is a great meal. And Rubio’s has the Health- Mex Salad. Whole Foods is my favorite place of all.

TB: Okay, everybody’s guilty of an occasional junk-food binge. I confess to a weakness for Cheetos and Dr Pepper. What’s yours?

JC: Just a good bag of original Lay’s potato chips. Or Pringles. You know, when you go to the hotel and there they are? I can eat a whole can.

TB: Well, obviously, you’re getting away with it.

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